


what a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you

by cakecakecake



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Banter, Canon Compliant, F/M, Flirting, Making Out, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Spoilers, Supportive Dad Wong, Teasing, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 11:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14592351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakecakecake/pseuds/cakecakecake
Summary: you are wong's apprentice and his partner is more than a little distracting.





	what a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you

**Author's Note:**

> apologizes profusely for how cheesy this is

"Don't touch the record player." 

"Wong doesn't mind," you assure him with an innocent grin, sliding the vinyl out from its sleeve.

He takes a bite of his apple and groans. "I know he doesn't. I'd just rather not find out what kind of garbage you listen to."

"Would you call Heart garbage?"

Stephen's brow creases as his eyes turn to you. "You listen to Heart?"

"Is it so surprising?" you have to laugh, striding toward him. "I mean, I don't know their entire discography or anything, but I do love the hits."

Ann Wilson's voice echoes along the walls of the sanctum. You absently sing along, you know all the words, and Stephen turns back to his book. His eyes linger on the pages before snapping it shut and he rises to shove it back in its rightful space on the shelf. "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You, 1990 -- last hit to make number one."

You purse your lips, shaking your head a little bit as you fold your arms. "Last one to make top ten, but it never got number one -- "

"Yes it did," Stephen combats you, but you start giggling.

"Not in the states," you say, "It was stuck at number two for weeks, 'Vogue' kept it from the top spot. Honestly, Strange, I thought this was like, your _thing_ \-- "

"I'm consulting Wikipedia -- "

"It's gonna tell you you're wrong," you tease him, lightly, laughter quieting as his arm brushes yours in his walk toward the laptop. You stand awkwardly between him and the shelf, watching him find out he's definitely wrong with a few clicks in the browser, catching the tremor in his hands as they move across the keyboard. 

You frown, sucking in a shallow breath as you recall Wong's short answer to your question from months ago. "A car accident." Thinking it better to leave it at that, you never asked the former doctor himself. He wasn't your teacher, Wong was, so it must be even less of your business to know, but you never stopped being curious -- not only about his hands. Your eyes trail along the scars running along his fingers and knuckles, noting the map of his veins, wondering when he'd last allowed anyone to touch them when a huff of a laugh shakes you from your thought. 

"You were right. Never hit number one."

He actually sounds impressed and you're too delighted by that to gloat, so you shrug sheepishly, watching him sink back into the other chair and reach for his apple again. You inch away from the bookshelf back over to record player, lowering the volume before you think you're bold enough to speak again. 

"This is fun, you know. You're fun to talk to." You test a more syrupy, honeyed voice than you're used to using, earning his interested gaze. 

"Well, you're very easily entertained." He doesn't aim for condescending, but with Stephen Strange, it nearly always sounds that way. The upturned corners of his mouth are reassuring, though, so you smile back. 

"I just think you're funny," you tease him and he rolls his eyes.

"Of course, why else would I have cajoled Wong into taking you in?"

"You mean it _wasn't_ because of my inexorable charm?" 

He groans, clenching his jaw as he drones on, dripping sarcasm, "Your _sparkling_ charisma was not the deciding factor, no, however bewitching it may be." 

Your breath hitches on your next laugh, caught in your throat as you fight the burning sensation in your cheeks.

"So you agree, you think I'm charming?"

"Almost as much as you're annoying -- "

"That was mean, I'm telling my teacher about your indecorous behavior."

"Be my guest, he'll tell you the same thing he always tells you -- "

"That you need to stop distracting me?"

"That you need to stop antagonizing my partner," Wong interrupts you, appearing suddenly from behind the record player. You launch yourself a good foot off the floor and yelp and Strange doesn't bother holding in his laugh. "Have you finished the readings I assigned you?"

"Yes, Master," you hum sprightly, wringing your hands. 

"Excellent. Come. Meditate with me."

"But I already -- "

"Meditate," he repeats himself sternly, looking between you and Strange, who awkwardly clears his throat. "Out in the courtyard. With me." Away from Strange, he doesn't say, but it wouldn't shock you to know he's thinking it. He darts down the hall and you shuffle after him, heart skipping as Strange shoots you a wink from over his shoulder. Honestly, fuck this guy. 

*

Back straight, hands at your knees, the crisp air filling your lungs, you smile slightly, enjoying the bustle of the city behind you. Having spent so long hearing it you don't think you can concentrate without it, now. Sirens and whoops and honks from the streets draw you inward rather than out, enhancing your focus on your breathing. Wong sits across from you, his exchange of inhales and exhales in sync with yours until he asks, "When are you going to tell him?"

Your eyes snap open to see his face completely unmoved. Losing all focus, you spit defensively, "I have no idea what you're talking about -- "

"Of course you do, the tension between you is so palpable I can feel it weighted on my shoulders every time we three share a space," he says so plainly he might as well be talking of the weather. Your face flushes a pink that matches the peonies in your surrounding garden. "So when were you going to tell him?"

"I wasn't planning on it," you admit, "it's highly innappropriate for -- "

"Bickering like flirtatious schoolchildren is maddening to watch, yet not innappropriate," Wong corrects you gently, opening his eyes finally. "As long as it doesn't interfere with your studies, which it most certainly will the longer you put off your confession."

"Wong, I can't tell him."

"It's a crush, child, not a crime. No need to be embarrassed."

"He's like, fifteen years my senior -- "

"And you're twenty-six, not eighteen."

"But he's a fucking doctor -- "

"Mind your language," he amends you, and adds, "and he _was_ a doctor, now a Master of the Mystic Arts, a standing you'll never reach if you allow your feelings to distract you."

"He's not _that_ distracting -- "

The creak of the sanctum's heavy back door makes you swing your head around to watch Strange emerge from the shadow of the corridor, sunlight catching the silvery streaks of his hair. His bare arms bend and flex as he starts weeding out the garden, readying to water the flowers. He notices your eyes on him in an instant, flashing a knowing smile as Wong heaves a hopeless sigh. 

"What if he likes you too?"

"He doesn't," you hiss, snapping back to your teacher. 

"You sound so sure," he says slowly, doubtful. 

"He likes reminding me how much better he is at all this than I am," you say bitterly. "He likes playing games."

"Perhaps that is so," Wong agrees, but adds, "but it doesn't mean his heart doesn't also flutter in your presence." 

"I'd have to feel it to believe it," you groan. 

"If you don't confront this, you never will," he tells you, and you can't counter that. "Whatever he feels, you will come to accept, and journey onward, both of you stronger because of it." 

"I'm afraid," you confess quietly, meeting his eyes. Wong softens, creasing concerned brows. 

"Of what, child?"

Not rejection. A fear for children, for people too used to getting what they want and then having their pride wounded. The difference in age, yes, you're a little afraid of that -- you're not so young that it's creepy, but Strange was a neurosurgeon, now a formidable sorcerer and guardian of the expanded universe, and you're a few years out of college with an uninteresting degree and a beginner at everything surrounding the Mystic Arts, a lifetime behind him in world experience. Not the most ideal making of a May-December romance, but still not your biggest fear. Wong knows it goes deeper than that, he just wants you to say it. But you're not going to. He huffs out a chortle.

"When you first came to me, I told you that our duty is to protect reality at whatever cost," he starts, resting a hand on yours. "We don't get the luxury of deciding what price we'd rather not pay."

Your lip trembles, remembering these words from long ago, back when you believed you had nothing to lose. Wong gives your hand a squeeze.

"We're not going to be here forever, my dear." 

You know. You squeeze it back with a slight of a grin. 

*

_"Fourteen million, six hundred and five."_

_"Thanos..."_

_" -- universe with a snap of his fingers..."_

A crash of thunder rattles the sanctum's walls and you jolt awake. Rain spatters heavily against your window as the fairy lights in your room flicker. You heave in shuddering breaths, willing your nerves to calm -- a nightmare. You steady yourself upright, pinching your temple, trying your best to recall -- there was somebody, a blurred visage of someone attacking people, but you don't know who it is. You have no idea what they look like, only that they're dangerous -- incomprehensibly so. Fearful. A destroyer. Strange had been in the dream too, fighting against them. Fighting them with a group of other immensely powerful beings, other people of whom you're not sure of -- until one by one, they vanish. Crumbling to dust, scattered in ashes across the cosmos, each of these extraordinary beings and Strange, gone. A futile battle. You can smell desert and dying fires, feel the anguish -- it seems too real, like you've seen something that's just happened. Or going to happen?

You wrap a robe about yourself and tiptoe downstairs for a glass of water, trying to shake the visions from your head. It's only a nightmare -- whatever you see in your dreams is only a projection of your subconscious fears or desires. Future sight takes years of practice, the right spells, conditions -- nobody can simply just dream about the future, it's impossible -- yet somehow this stirs you so much, you wonder if you should say something. 

Not to Strange, of course, that's certainly out of the question. _"Hey, Doctor, not to sound weird or anything but I had a very vivid dream about you -- "_ and you'd be cut off by a highly amused chuckle, followed by a slew of teasing jokes and you'd end up addressing an entirely different issue, and that's not ideally how you'd like to manage that. No, you can't go to Strange about it, but you'd feel childish and immature asking your teacher about something as trivial as the significance of dreams. Wong had told you already that you could ask him about anything, but the fact that it's Strange that you're dreaming of, no matter the context, feels almost too awkward. You wrangle with yourself some more as you gulp down the last of your water and figure you'll worry about it in the morning when a deafening crash hits the foyer.

"He's coming, Thanos is coming," a bewildered scientist amongst the rubble mutters wildly. Thanos is coming. Thanos. The Titan. The destroyer of universes. The one who's going to kill Strange and countless billions of others. 

The one from your dream. 

The man who crashed through the sanctum introduces himself as Bruce Banner, but you've seen him with the Avengers -- the Incredible Hulk. You listen to his plight with Wong and Strange and your panic increases, but you know well enough it's not the time to talk about a nightmare you had, no matter how relevant its content. No, you figure you'll make everyone some tea and get comfortable while the next step is determined. Stephen will come find you in the kitchen after what feels like hours.

"How is he?"

"Sustaining minor injuries -- after a shower and a nap I'm sure he'll be fine." 

He pours himself some tea and you turn on the coffee pot. "So now what do we do."

Without looking your way, he squeezes honey into his mug. "We?"

"Sorry, did I mumble?"

Strange's brows arch impossibly high as he hums a chuckle. " _I'm_ going to find Tony Stark, and you're going to stay right here with Wong."

"And _after_ you find him?"

"We're going to devise a plan to prevent our impending doom."

"Sounds great, I'll make sure I'm dressed by the time you get back."

You move to pour yourself some coffee, but his hand grips your arm and you almost stop breathing, eyes locked on his. It's the first time he's ever touched you and you're not sure he's realizing it himself. "And if I happen not to come back. You're going to stay right here. With Wong."

"I'm not just gonna hang out here while you -- "

"Guarding the sanctum is not _hanging out_ ," he says defensively, his grasp still tight. "Your presence is needed here."

"Because I'm not strong enough to go out and fight?"

"Because you're strong enough to be entrusted with defending a sacred place," he says more quietly. There's a glint in the deep of his eyes that you haven't seen before.

"Not strong enough without Wong, though, right?" you combat him, frustrated yet flattered (but mostly frustrated).

"Don't mistake my concern for a lack of faith, I know you're strong," he tells you, earnestly, his other hand now clutching your shoulder and you shudder a breath. It's so hard to meet his eyes but you do, choice words sticking in your throat as he half-smiles. "You're oozing potential, dripping in raw talent -- Wong would agree. It -- It would be foolish to allow that to go to waste."

Your lips tremble into a childish grin as you fight oncoming tears. "Losing me would be a...waste of potential?"

"Losing you would be unfathomably difficult to..." he catches himself, eyes averted to his hands still clutching you. He coughs out a laugh, recognizing. He walked right into this one. "I didn't imagine being the first one to crack."

"I was trying to set up the perfect interlude for you to," you grin, furtive and kittenish.

"So this was your plan all along?" he plays along, drawing you closer to him. The warmth that had already sparked in your chest was spreading like a bonfire now, setting flame to the ends of your nerves. 

"Since I stepped foot in this sanctum, yeah," you feel like it's safe to admit now, now with your face inches from his, his breath on your cheek. 

"That long?" his surprise sounds so sincere with the break in his voice. All you do is nod, feeling less and less like an accomplished mystic artist and more and more like a moony college kid. 

"Why didn't you say anything before," the dulcet tone of his voice makes your eyes flutter near shut. You finally let yourself touch his hands, palms clammy against the ridges and rivets of his scars -- the sensation steals your next breath; it's not an unpleasant feeling, just different. A good sort of different. 

"Technically neither one of us has properly addressed it yet," you whisper, your mouth impossibly close to his now, yet still a careful measure from -- 

"Are we going to?" His chest presses against you and you can't tell whose heartbeat is racing faster.

"Can we save it for after we defend the universe from calamitous destruction?" 

"Motivation to succeed, good strategy," he hums, moving his hands up to your neck, "but I'm afraid I can't save it all for..."

You don't let him finish. You grasp at the collar of the Cloak and close the already tight gap between you, eagerly opening your mouth to welcome his against it. You attempt to resist moaning like a horny teenager, but the noise escapes your throat, earning you an appreciative grunt from the doctor as he grasps your robes and shoves you against the counter. His mug of tea clatters to the floor with a crash that echoes through to the foyer, but Wong and Bruce are but forgotten as Strange wraps his arms about your waist.

He kisses much like he conjures: punctuated with pointed touches -- his hands don't wander, they cling to a certain spot and caress, grope, fondle before moving to the next area of interest, as if he'd conceived a plan for how he'd map out your body ages ago. His touch is impossibly warm, leaving a searing ache when he lifts away. He dips his head to kiss at your neck, drawing out soft mewls from you as he claws at your chest. The trembling in his hands is so vigorous, you reach to steady him, guiding him along as his teeth sink into your sensitive flesh. Your blood is thrumming so hard as you breath shallowly in his ear, grasping at his wrists. His pulse throbs against your thumbs in a fiercely quick rhythm and you chew on your bottom lip, riled by how thrilling that feels. 

He pulls away to kiss your mouth again, his fluttering heartbeat pressed against you, spurring yours faster and you don't know if you can tolerate only making out anymore but the loud _ahem_ from across the kitchen shocks you both so violently it nearly blasts you from your physical body. 

"I'm -- really sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering if you had any uh -- clothes that I could borrow? Probably shouldn't be walking out in public with just a -- bathrobe on -- "

Banner looks as red in the face as you must be, scratching at the back of his neck with damp hair clinging to his forehead. 

Strange manages to find words first. "Sure, uh -- closet, down the hall, behind the Cauldron of the Cosmos. Spare clothes, I'm sure we're a similar size."

"Great, thank you," he smiles apologetically, swinging his arms awkwardly as he turns from the doorway. You swallow thickly and look sheepishly up at Strange.

"I think I'm gonna go back to bed."

"You just made coffee," he says, grinning slyly. 

"Banner seems like a coffee kind of guy," you offer, re-tying the sash on your bed clothes. 

"I'll wake you after we fetch Stark," he says, leaning into you. You haven't released his wrists. 

"Stephen..."

"Yes," he says duskily, forehead resting against yours. You take careful measure of your next breath. 

"I don't want that to be the last time that happens."

The sorcerer lifts your chin to watch your eyes, brushing a quivering finger over your lips. "I'll take care to see that it won't be."

*

"Where is he?" You ask your mentor hours later, rushing into the foyer after your nap. There was no Banner, no Tony Stark, but most importantly to you --

"Wong -- where's Stephen? Where did he go?"

Wong's eyes darken as he meets your face. "Fulfilling his duty in guarding the Time Stone," He sounds uncertain of himself for the first you've ever heard. 

"Wong, what happened out th -- "

Your teacher takes hold of your shoulders, looking you over for a moment before pulling you in for a brief, tight hug. He mutters your name softly, his words gracing the shell of your ear as you feel the sting of oncoming tears. It registers that you probably should talk about it now.

"Wong, I'm sorry," you start apologizing, a strain on your throat. "I forgot to tell you something earlier, something that might be important -- "

"What is it?" he asks you patiently, fatherly, furrowing his brow. 

"I thought it might not -- I don't know if it -- " you struggle to even your breathing, feeling silly. "I had a nightmare last night, and I didn't think it meant anything until that guy Bruce told us about Thanos and I think -- I think -- "

Wong's jaw clenches as he takes in a breath through his nostrils. "Calm, child. Calm." 

"I was watching Stephen die," you choke out, hands clasped in your teacher's. "Stephen, and Stark, and Bruce and so many others...Over and over again and I...I'm afraid we're all going to."

Wong pulls you close to him again, carding a hand through your hair as you cry into his robes. He hushes words of little comfort, telling you that dreams are only dreams, that night terrors feed off of your subconscious fears and your blossoming feelings for the former doctor are concocting the visions that would disturb you most. He tells you to be strong, that now is the time to put your faith in the knowledge that you've expanded. Your heart should guide you, not carry you away. 

You try (and fail) to convince yourself that he's right.


End file.
